These days, Text Edit, Apple’s basic text editing program, uses iCloud as the default location for saving files. Which is all very fine and dandy, but what if you don’t want to save all your random Text Edit stuff in iCloud? Are you out of luck?

Nope, of course not! We wouldn’t even be writing this tip if you were.

There’s a simple Terminal command which will set the default to your local hard drive instead of iCloud. You can still save to iCloud, of course; it just won’t be the first place that shows up when you hit “Save” while working in Text Edit (or any other iCloud-enabled apps).

To make this desirable outcome happen, launch Terminal from your Utilities folder, itself in the Applications folder. Once Terminal launches, type or paste the following command in:

Now, when you go to save a file in Text Edit or other iCloud-enabled apps, the default will be on your local Mac, instead of iCloud. I set my destination to the Documents folder. You can still save to iCloud, of course, just click on the popup menu and choose iCloud as your save location, as per usual.

If you find yourself wanting to save stuff to iCloud more easily, again, and want to turn things back to the way they were, simply type or paste the below command into a Terminal session. Easy!

About the author:

Rob LeFebvre is an Anchorage, Alaska-based writer and editor who has contributed to various tech, gaming and iOS sites, including 148Apps, Creative Screenwriting, Shelf-Awareness, VentureBeat, and Paste Magazine. Feel free to find Rob on Twitter @roblef, and send him a cookie once in a while; he'll really appreciate it.

natec82

Thanks for this! I thought I was the only one annoyed by the fact that iCloud is the default.

Question: Does this change the default save location for every application? Or just Text Edit?

bbeebe

Thanks, you’ve made Preview usable again.You mentioned that you set your Desktop as the default location–how to do that?Also, how to change default to jpeg?